The Religion word

I see absolutely no good reason why you should not join the SPGB in that case.  It is irrational and absurd to put completely unnecessary obstacles in the way of you doing that.

Resolution passed by Conference 2003 by 90 votes to 15 (86% to 14%). 

Just like to say that an uncle of mine, a vicar of the church of England for decades, stated quite categorically that he had no belief whatsoever in any kind of afterlife. We never discussed socialism but now I look back I wished I knew about the party in those days because I’m sure we would have had much to agree upon, knowing the kind of man he was. 

From The Western Socialist No.2 1966 “God is Dead” by Rab,Like Engels’ “shame-faced materialists” of the 19th century, the Rationalists who gave materialist explanations for all phenomena but metaphysical rationalizations for their uncertainties, the “God is Dead” clergymen cling to their adherence to a meaningless “religion,” freed, as it is alleged, from a belief in a supernatural power, a belief which alone constitutes the very essence of all religions. Remove the “supernatural” and there is no religion left. 

Hi Robin and everyoneHistorical materialism is just as antithetical to the concept of god as metaphysical materialism.  If all human ideas emerge from material conditions, then that is where the idea of god originated too. But aren’t there two prior questions? 1. Should we assume that all party members believe in socialism for rational reasons, and 2. does someone have to subscribe to the materialist conception of history to be a socialist?  Frankly, I think the answer is no on both counts.    I’ve known people within the party say, for example, oh I can’t be bothered with all that intellectual stuff, I’m just a gut socialist.  We are perfectly willing to accept gut socialists into the party so long as they give give the right answers to the basic questions.  And so we damn well should!  But heaven knows (!) gut socialism is no more rational than a belief in the creator.   Then, I have a strong suspicion that a lot of members come to hold certain beliefs because when they enter the party, that’s what the party orthodoxy says.  They take them on trust and assert them but if asked to defend them, wouldn’t be able to.  I know that to be true of some ideas for some people, including, if I’m honest, me (though I’m gradually working on that.  LOL).  How many people within the party who say they subscribe to the Labour Theory of Value would be able to defend it rationally, for instance, against its many objectors? It’s a complicated argument.  How many members would even know what it was?  It is open to a multitide of interpretations. How many members who cheefully claim that currency crank theories of money are nonsense and talk demeaningly about those who defend them would be able to give a detailed and rational analysis to support their view? There are loads of areas where members clearly take certain views on trust or have only a hazy understanding of them. And how many irrational beliefs do many of us hold in our daily life anyway.  Probably far more than we would be prepared to acknowledge. I think we kid ourselves a lot of the time that we are these perfectly rational beings.  Why would we be?.  We don’t, after all, have a god’s eye view of reality and we have to deal with a complicated world.  We don’t have time to have detailed, reasoned, empirically supported views on everything we need to make decisions on.  Life is too short and far too occupied with wage-slavery.  I would object to giving membership to anyone who was a member of a religious organisation or subscribed to the beliefs of a religious organisation.  That’s simple, there would be a direct or potential conflict of values there.   But I’m not sufficiently purist to believe that someone who simply has a belief in a creator could never be a conscious socialist.  That’s because I don’t believe that a carefully reasoned belief system is what defines a conscious socialist.  A conscious socialist, in my book, is someone who identifies with working-class class interests and works for the introduction of a common ownership, post-capitalist society.   If anyone believes that religion and belief in a creator are going to disappear at all soon among the working class, then, personally, I think they are going to be disappointed.  If a socialist movement ever does get off the ground then we are going to have to work with socialists who believe in a creator or even have religious views. That’s something we will have to face. We constantly side-step this issue.  How rational is that? Whether we should accept people as members who believe in god but don’t subscribe to any religion – well, I struggle with that.  On balance I think I’m against it – very reluctantly. I’m really quite sympathetic to many of Robin’s arguments on this.  He makes some very good points.  Yet, still I think it would cause us big problems.  But one thing I feel certain about.  I don’t think we should be denying them membership for purely philosophical reasons.  That really would turn us into something of an elitist cult.  But to admit people with a belief in a creator, all kinds of practical questions and problems would arise.  If we did, then there would be no question of this being ‘a private matter’.  Being a socialist is above all a social act and that would have to take precedence over everything else.  Would we demand to know what conclusions they drew from their belief or what were their associated idea?  Would we be able to preserve a purely atheistical stance in our propaganda? Would we want to?   If so, would we, then, have to ask members who believed in god not to promote that idea when speaking on behalf of the party?  How many would want to join under those circumstances.   I think it could get very, very complicated.We have someone on the forum here who is a committed socialist but also believes in a creator.  Can we not ask him to engage open-mindedly and honestly in this debate without defensively attacking his views?  I think it is an important one for us all.   

 We are constantly being told by Robin that the party “would probably now be many times larger than it is today –  considering the thousands of people who have come into its orbit but have been disillusioned by its dogmatic stance on religion.”Where is the evidence for this statement?  I’ve been around the party for some years and I can’t think of one religious person I’ve met who said they’d been put off the party because of its stance on not admitting religious individuals.  The truth is that the majority of religious people subscribe to an after-life of one sort or another and many regard their present existence as simply a lacrimarum valle and thus have no real incentive to improve their lot or that of others except to the extent that their ‘good works’ might guarantee safe passage to the hereafter.However, although religious people cannot join the party at present, they can, if they so wish, participate in socialist activities, even within the party but without being actual members.  My branch (K&SRB) has one such person (a catholic) who has been a supporter of the party for many years and is currently more active within the branch than some members.

There is plenty of evidence of individuals with religious views being initially attracted to the Party, discovering its policy on barring individuals with any sort of religious views whatsoever and being put off by it.  I too was a member of the SPGB for a long time  and all I can say is my  experience was totally different from Dave’s.  There was even a member of my branch who, I recall,  developed religious ideas and despite my best efforts to persuade him not to leave, he disappeared into the ether never to be heard again. Over on SPOPEN I see an ex member of the Membership Committee revealed  that he  had to ” reject a large number of people of different religions who accepted the core meaningful points of our case for a socialist society  (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spopen/message/15142).  This would only be the tip of an iceberg.  Many more people, learning about the Party ‘s anti-religious attitude simply do not bother even to apply to join and the great bulk of those, in my experience, just drift away. One or two may stick around  but is there not something a little hypocritical or condescending about the Party’s attitude towards such individuals,  some of whom are more active , as Dave admits, than many members?   .”You can help the Party but you cannot join us because you are not socialists” seems to be the line of argument here.  If you really believed these individuals were not socialists then it would be more honest to refuse their offer help  – just as you do when you urge people not to vote for the SPGB if they are not convinced socialists. But all that is somewhat besides the main point – which is the utter irrationality of the SPGB’s  stand on the question of religious applicants.  This is richly ironic because, as we have already seen in this thread, the grounds on which religious applicants are rejected are precisely that they are supposed to hold “irrational” views. What is it with this fetishisation of “rationality” in the SPGB, anyway?   Frankly it makes my toes curl with embarrassment every  time I head this mindlessly simplistic  dyad being solemnly intoned : socialist = rational,  religious = irrational.  This comes across as so  cringingly old fashined .  The human personality  -if I can put it like that  – is inevitably an admixture of both irrational and irrational impulses whether you are a socialist or a religious believer or none of the above.. There is no such thing as a socialist without  irrational impluses any more than there is a religious believer without rational impulses.  We are all without exception a bit of both – unless you’re a computerised automaton with chip, not so much on your shoulder, but inside that cavity between your ears where your thinking feeling brain used to reside. In fact,  some religious type arguyments that have been presented in the past – like the argument from design – have been extremely “rational” and sophisticated in their structure and presentation.  Read,  for example the case put forward by William Paley. (http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/paley.shtml).  The argument might be false but it is not necessarily irrational and a notable feature of some contemporary religioinists. like Peter Russell ,  himself a physicist and mathematician , is that there is no incompatibility between religion and science  at all.  Quantum physics, the Unpredictability principle  and all that jazz has certainly done much to change our perception of the nature of physical reality and this is what the modern religionists are tapping into – not  some arcane argument about how many angels you can fit onto a pinhead.   In short, its not the metaphysics of religion that is the problem – it is the reactionary social policies of certain religions that is the problem and it is this alone that is relevant to socialist critique. The point is this –  what is a socialist? A socialist is someone who wants and understands socialism.  Period.  Is Dave seriously trying to suggest here that the Catholic sympathiser who attends  his branch meetings is not a socialist?   If so, perhaps he ought to try telling  this person and see what kind of response that will provoke.  My bet is that such an individual would not then be returning to branch meetings any time too soon and the branch would be the poorer for that – just as the Party is vastly poorer for having excluded all those religious socialists down the years. Dave knows as well as I do that he won’t be telling this Cayholic sympathiser that he or she is not a socialist becuase he knows in his heart of hearts that that is not true.  But in knowing that he must also know  that he is being fundamentally inconsistent and irrational  There is absolutely no reason why someone with religious views cannot be a socialist in the sense Ive spelt out above and I defy anyone to prove otherwise.  The plain fact  of the matter is that there is more than enough safeguards to ensure that only genuine socialists can get into the SPGB. The anti-religious clause is totally redundant and, more than  that,  it is serious impediment to Party growth though some members continue to think – irrationally – that it serves some kind of useful purpose in assisting the movement towards socialism